Dying yarn for 8th color, Astoria sock

This is basically the e-mail that Kate sent me, showing her process in creating the 8th color for an Astoria Sock kit, as we contemplate a KAL (knit-a-long). I found it so fascinating that I asked her if I could share, and she agreed. I am continually amazed and intrigued with the dying process – the artistry and patience involved, as well as the science. Don’t forget to vote, in the comments, on which color we should choose! See yesterday’s blog post for full details.

I knew I wanted to try both a warmer blue and a cooler blue, because there are both warm and cool color combinations in the minis. I knew a true warm would definitely work; I wasn’t sure about a true cool, so I started with a warm blue in both cases. This blue is a combination of midnight blue and black. Two skeins! I was happy with this blue for the warm, so I went on to the cooler blue.

For the second skein, I overdyed the first color with a very little bit of a cool, florescent blue. I was happy with this one too, so I set both these blues aside. Blues are pretty easy, and almost any blue looks good! Plus people like blues and purples, so dyers get a lot of practice working with those shades. I can do blues in my sleep! 😀

Yellow, however, is not so easy at all. The world is full of some truly awful yellows, and even of the decent yellows, it’s hard to get people to agree on a color they like. You’d said “buttery,” I think, and that was a good jumping off point. Our house yellow, Apollo, is a very strong, golden, bright yellow. It has a hit of red in it to make it gold, but it’s nothing like what I picture when I think “buttery.”

The first yellow was a disaster. In fact, it was orange!! I’m used to working with a cool yellow primary for the most part, and I’d gone warm for our yellow. I didn’t realize how little red it would take to make orange with that yellow. Whoops! Back to the drawing board.

Well… at least it was yellow and not orange?

This might, *might* be a good yellow for baby things. I think. Maybe not. Regardless, it was pretty anemic so I doubled the recipe I’d just used. Because despite it being anemic, it did seem to have the right tone…

Much better! I’d wound up with a warm, buttery yellow that once it dried and lightened (you have to factor that in when you’re judging the quality of a color on a wet skein!), might nicely compliment the existing colors.

Speaking of, once the skeins were cooked and dried, I set them out next to the other colors. Here’s how they look!

(Although these were taken outside, photos are notoriously bad — particularly my photos! — for getting true yarn colors, so allow for that…)